Israeli Cybersecurity Startup Pcysys Raises $10M For Automated Risk Validation

Israeli cybersecurity startup Pcysys, announced on Wednesday that it completed a $10 million Series A funding round led by Canadian VC firm Awz Ventures, backed by former Canadian PM Stephen Harper, and American investment firm Blackstone.

Founded in 2015, Pcysys (an acronym for “Proactive Cyber Systems”) developed a risk validation platform for automated penetration testing that allows organizations to focus on vulnerabilities that would do severe damage, and less on those that cannot truly be exploited, the company says.

“Automating red teaming and penetration testing activities, Pcysys’ PenTera™ platform uses algorithms to scan and ethically penetrate the corporate network with the latest hacking techniques, prioritizing remediation efforts with a threat-facing perspective. By applying the hacker’s perspective, our software identifies, analyzes and prioritizes remediation of cyber defense vulnerabilities,” the startup said in a statement.

Pcysys was founded by Arik Liberzon and Arik Faingold and is led by CEO Amitai Ratzon. It employs 50 people across offices in Petah Tikva, Israel, the US, the UK, and Canada, and says it has close to 100 paying enterprise customers across 15 industries including banking, insurance, retail, energy, and healthcare.

“Our customers have been investing millions in defense technologies, without the ability to effectively validate against the real threat,” said Ratzon in a company statement. “PenTera has finally made this possible, paving the way to revolutionizing risk validation, as we know it today.”

He said the latest funding, which brings Pcysyss total capital raised to $15 million to date, will be used to expand “sales and support functions in North America and EMEA [Europe, Middle East, Africa] and to further develop its enterprise-grade technology.”

Yaron Ashkenazi, the founder and managing partner of Awz Ventures, which led Pcysys’ seed round, said that the firm was “proud of Pcysys and the incredible progress that they made in such a short period of time.”

“Together with our new partner, Blackstone Innovation, we are confident Pcysys can become a global leader in the field of cybersecurity and risk validation, he added.

Harper serves as Awz’s advisory committee president, and Ed Sonshine, the CEO of one of Canada’s largest real estate investment trusts, RioCan serves as chairman of the board. Awz’s management and advisors also include former senior executives from Israeli and Canadian security agencies such as the Mossad, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and the Canadian Armed Forces, the firm says.